Five of the best ... films
Mid90s (15)
(Jonah Hill, 2018, US) 85 mins
Superbad star Jonah Hill turns director to shape his own, more arthouse-facing coming-of-age tale. Like Shane Meadows’s This Is England, with less harrowing violence and lots of skateboarding, Mid90s stars Sunny Suljic as Stevie, a 13-year-old boy taken in by an older group of stoners and slackers. The story is slight, but Hill evokes the time and mood quite winningly.
Wild Rose (15)
(Tom Harper, 2018, UK) 100 mins
Jessie Buckley was impressive enough in last year’s psychological thriller Beast, but here she is dynamite as Glaswegian Rose-Lynn, a newly paroled young mother with dreams of becoming a country music star in Nashville. It is a familiar underdog story that checks off all the right emotions and not just the boxes; a crowd-pleaser with a belting soundtrack.
Happy As Lazzaro (12A)
(Alice Rohrwacher, 2018, It/Swi/Fr/Ger) 127 mins
Following Corpo Celeste and The Wonders, this mix of fabulism and neo-realism finds Cannes favourite Rohrwacher back in the countryside of Italy. The setting is a remote community of practically enslaved tobacco farmers, where the guileless Lazzaro (Adriano Tardiolo) is recruited by the farm owner’s son Tancredi (Luca Chikovani) to help him fake a kidnapping to spite his exploitative mother.
The Sisters Brothers (15)
(Jacques Audiard, 2018, Fr/Spa/Rom/Bel/US) 122 mins
Jacques Audiard’s English-language debut is impressive, and sits well alongside his previous genre reinventions such as gangster epic A Prophet. His take on the western is just as fresh: Joaquin Phoenix and John C Reilly are the Sisters brothers, two bounty hunters at the peak of the gold rush, famous and feared – but where do they go from here? It’s a question that’s answered in a witty way.
Shazam! (12A)
(David F Sandberg, 2019, US) 132 mins
Just as DC movies appeared to be in a race to the bottom with films as joyless as Suicide Squad, along comes a superhero film that remembers these things are meant to be, you know, for kids. Fourteen-year-old Billy Batson (Asher Angel) is granted superpowers by a wizard and transforms into his adult avatar (Zachary Levi), who is charmingly clueless.
DW
Five of the best ... rock & pop
Dave
He is not exactly a party starter but David Orobosa Omoregie’s Psychodrama is one of the most distinctive British hip-hop albums in years. Dave’s vibe is troubled and occasionally furious; he documents the black British experience unflinchingly, even featuring a track based around a call from his brother who’s serving life for murder.
Newcastle upon Tyne, Saturday 13; Nottingham, Monday 15; Leeds, Tuesday 16; Liverpool, Wednesday 17; Manchester, Thursday 18 April; touring to 3 May
The Specials
The ska veterans returned in a blaze of glory in February with Encore, a new album that surprised everyone by sounding fresh, relevant and generally excellent. Terry, Lynval and Horace hit the road this week, feeding off an era of division not entirely unlike the troubled late-70s period that spawned them.
Bournemouth, Monday 15; Portsmouth, Tuesday 16; Brighton, Wednesday 17; Plymouth, Friday 19 April; touring to 18 May
Stefflon Don
Stephanie “Stefflon Don” Allen has, in her short career to date, broken into the US Top 10, collaborated with Nile Rodgers and been romantically linked with Drake. Live, she’s a blast; expect a furiously eclectic mixture of dancehall, Brazilian baile funk, Afrobeats and grinding hip-hop. And, of course, Steff’s customarily glorious lyrical filth, which reflects a heritage somewhere between east London and Jamaica.
Leeds, Saturday 13; Glasgow, Sunday 14; Norwich, Monday 15; Birmingham, Wednesday 17; Cardiff, Thursday 18; London, Friday 19 April
Fontaines DC
These abrasive Dubliners are at the heart of a wave of fierce young guitar slingers emerging from the Irish capital. Grian Chatten’s lyrics are proudly colloquial but there is an outward-facing, exploratory aspect to their recently released album, Dogrel, recalling everyone from Sonic Youth to their former studio-mates Girl Band.
Manchester, Saturday 13; Glasgow, Sunday 14; Nottingham, Tuesday 16; London, Wednesday 17; Brighton, Thursday 18 April
PH
Liran Donin’s 1000 Boats
Led Bib bassist-composer Liran Donin’s 1000 Boats band – a folksy but fierce outfit with links to the lyricism of Avishai Cohen and Hermeto Pascoal – released a 2018 album highlight with 8 Songs. They play the Jazz in the Round stage at Love Supreme’s Roundhouse day, which also features Laura Mvula, Kamaal Williams and others.
Roundhouse, NW1, Saturday 13 April
JF
Three of the best ... classical concerts
The Garden
The London Sinfonietta brings Richard Ayres’s darkly comic music-theatre piece to London six months after its premiere in the Netherlands. Inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy and the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch, the protagonist of No 50 (The Garden) is a discontented man who digs down in his garden looking for the meaning of life, only to find himself back where he began. A single performer, the bass Joshua Bloom, takes all the roles, with Geoffrey Patterson conducting a score in which electronic sampling plays an important part.
Queen Elizabeth Hall, SE1, Wednesday 17 April
The Rose Lake
Twenty years after his death, Michael Tippett’s music has become a rarity in the concert hall, but his last orchestral work, inspired by a visit to Senegal, has bucked the trend. A year ago, The Rose Lake was revived by Simon Rattle and the LSO, and now it gets another performance in the Barbican from the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Andrew Davis, who follows it with Szymanowski’s first violin concerto and an orchestral suite from Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande.
Barbican Hall, EC2, Wednesday 17 April
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Easter concerts are generally predictable performances of the Bach passions or Haydn’s Seven Last Words, but BBC NOW’s programme with the BBC National Chorus of Wales is a curiously linked collection of seasonal music. There is a first half of Rimsky-Korsakov, Vaughan Williams and Percy Grainger, conducted by Jonathon Heyward, before Jonathan Cohen takes over the baton for Bach’s Easter Oratorio.
Wales Millennium Centre: BBC Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff, Thursday 18 April
AC
Five of the best ... exhibitions
Sean Scully
The paintings of Sean Scully are like ploughed fields or woven shawls of rough colour. This Ireland-born, America-based abstract artist plainly thinks a lot about what he is doing and why. That makes him a good choice to exhibit at London’s National Gallery, where his art can have a conversation with the likes of Rembrandt and Turner.
National Gallery, WC2, Saturday 13 April to 11 August
Useless
Alberta Whittle comments on the experiences of the Windrush generation in her video Sorry, Not Sorry. Emilio Bianchic’s film demonstrates how hard it can be to change a lightbulb if you forget to cut your fingernails. Both are showing for just a week in Pig Rock Bothy, a slanting art shack in the grounds.
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, Saturday 13 to 21 April
Charles Rennie Mackintosh
If you want to know why the second catastrophic fire to ravage Glasgow School of Art was a tragedy for human heritage, see this exhibition that explores the brilliant vision of its creator. Mackintosh worked in all forms, from architecture to posters, and could transform the humblest design commission into something wondrous. His orotund, organic style grows like a flower to make nature abstract.
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, to 26 August
Imaginary Cities
Victorian city maps become kaleidoscopic tangles of labyrinthine lines in this exhibition by Michael Takeo Magruder, whose installations are accompanied by a selection of historic urban maps. In his novel Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino imagined that all cities fold into each other in a mythology of urban possibility. That mashup becomes visible here as digital technology and the tradition of mapmaking unleash a steampunk metropolis of the mind.
The British Library, NW1, to 14 July
Who’s Afraid of Drawing?
Well, who is afraid of it? Certainly not Giuseppe “Pino” Rabolini, whose collection of drawings by some of the greatest modern Italian artists this exhibition celebrates. It includes the gifted futurist artist Umberto Boccioni and the eerie painter of empty piazzas Giorgio de Chirico. From the 1900s to arte povera, a history of modern Italian art on a manageable scale.
Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, N1, Wednesday 17 April to 23 June
JJ
Five of the best ... theatre shows
Orpheus Descending
This one is a bit of lottery but definitely worth a role of the dice. Tennessee Williams’s unusual play (transferring to London’s Menier Chocolate Factory on 9 May) has had a chequered performance history but is a stupendously theatrical affair – more dreamscape than drama. Tamara Harvey directs Hattie Morahan and Jemima Rooper.
Theatr Clwyd: Anthony Hopkins Theatre, Mold, Monday 15 to 27 April
Small Island
Small Island feels potent for lots of complicated and sad reasons, including author Andrea Levy’s recent death. This stage adaptation of her much-admired novel explores the struggle Jamaican immigrants faced to make a new life for themselves in 1940s London. It’s the Windrush scandal with fleshed-out characters, nuance and feeling.
National Theatre: Olivier, SE1, Wednesday 17 April to 10 August
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin
Louis de Bernières’s 1994 wartime romance finally makes it on to the stage. How has it taken this long? Writer Rona Munro and director Melly Still are at the helm. Both have past form with adapting novels for the theatre and will hopefully find fresh ways to reframe Bernières’s sweeping novel, set on a Greek island during the German occupation of the second world war. Here’s hoping for a classy piece of theatrical escapism.
Curve Theatre, Leicester, Saturday 13 to 20 April; touring to 29 June
The Half God of Rainfall
Inua Ellams is such a distinctive and exciting writer. His latest play is a new myth that explores power hierarchies in a male-dominated society, and tells the story of a mother who comes into conflict with her demigod son. The action unfolds in a small Nigerian village but also takes in Mount Olympus, the sky and outer space. It will include dance, song, ancient and urban myth – and basketball.
Birmingham Repertory Theatre: The Studio, Saturday 13 to 20 April; Kiln Theatre, NW6, 25 April to 17 May
Nigel Slater’s Toast
Chef Nigel Slater’s memoir has been adapted for the stage, and it isn’t nearly as cheesy or clunky as you might think. Toast racked up excellent reviews at last year’s Edinburgh festival and – with frequent on-stage cooking – is an immersive experience for all the senses. It’s a fairly simple tale of family sacrifice and private ambition in 60s Britain but told with imagination, heart and chutzpah.
The Other Palace, SW1, to 3 August
MG
Three of the best ... dance shows
Night of 100 Solos: A Centennial Event
To mark what would have been the 100th birthday of iconic choreographer Merce Cunningham, three parallel events are taking place in New York, Los Angeles and London. At the Barbican, 25 dancers (including Siobhan Davies, Francesca Hayward and Jonathan Goddard) perform every solo from a Cunningham piece that ever premiered here.
Barbican Theatre, EC2, Tuesday 16 April
Northern Ballet at Northern Stage
Here’s a triple bill of new work: Kenneth Tindall’s The Shape of Sound is set to Max Richter’s reworking of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons; Morgann Runacre-Temple explores the story of Mozart’s sister Nannerl; and dancer Mlindi Kulashe has his choreographic debut.
Northern Stage, Newcastle upon Tyne, Tuesday 16 to Thursday 18 April
UK B-Boy Championships: World Finals 2019
Flares, windmills and headspins at the ready – the 2019 finals of the long-running UK B-Boy Championships see fearless moves from an international lineup of crews and solo dancers, all battling it out for dancefloor supremacy.
Islington Assembly Hall, N1, Sunday 14 April
LW
Main image composite: Emma Kauldhar; Glasgow Museums Collection; Johan Persson; Joe Magowan; Altitude Films
